Car Repair

My Renault Captur needed work doing on it. I was told some while ago that it would need the timing
belt replacing. I don't even know what a timing chain is or what it does. I've been driving for 50 years and owned several cars but never come across this item in the engine. Well, I only drive my car and don't entirely understand how the thing works. The same with this MacBook Air, on which I write this blog. How on earth does the internet work? It's beyond me, but all I know is that it does work, miraculously. Anyway, I had to wait until my pension was paid into my account and then I went to Bleak Hall Motors to make an appointment for the car, which was yesterday (Friday). I was told it would take quite a long time, so there was no way I was going to sit in their waiting room until the work was finished, so I called for a taxi and went home and waited. I thought it might be a couple of hours, by which time the garage would phone me to tell me the car was ready to collect. This eventually came at around 4.15, and I then had to get another taxi to convey me back to Bleak Hall.  Bill paid and then I returned in the car, glad that the work is complete. Now the car needs servicing, basically because it's no point in having a car that doesn't operate properly, and anyway, with the computerised read-out on the dashboard constantly telling  me that it needs servicing in 20 days or so, I don't have much choice. It's sort of nagging me to have it done, so I will have to abide by it. I'll either go into Bleak Hall motors to arrange this or I can always ring.

(Saturday) Been out with Alfie at around 6.45. It's light enough at that time in the morning and the poor little dog was eager as ever. A cloud of seagulls on the green near Oldbrook Boulevard. I think they're probably after the worms or something, but they make a lot of noise and it makes me think of the seaside.

Someone coughing their lungs out in a nearby flat. I think it caused by smoking, so it begs the question: if that is the result, why smoke? If I get a load of smoke in my lungs, then it causes me all sorts of problems, and I was told, after I had my first heart attack, that if I'd smoked, then my heart attack might have happened around 5 years earlier.

Last night I heard fireworks being let off. Thank goodness Hallowe'en is over. A really nasty import from America, just a way to make money out of a load of tat which then ends up in land-fill. I think some individuals don't know the difference between Hallowe'en and Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes Night.) and that you don't have fireworks as part of Hallowe'en. Hopefully the rubbish being sold in the shops will now be gone, but we now have all the Christmas tat in the shops, endless shelves full of mince pies, Christmas puddings and wrapping paper and other stuff you don't need immediately for Christmas.

Later. I've been to Sainsbury's and I wasn't there long. The carpark was virtually empty. The store wasn't busy. I don't think the average shopper goes to a supermarket early on a Saturday. Most are tucked up under their duvets. But I suspect it's more to do with the rugby match in Japan, England v South Africa. I'm not sure what the time difference is between the United Kingdom and Japan. It does interest me, a good deal more than football, but I can take it or leave it.

I got hame and unloaded my shopping and was on the point of taking Alfie out for a walk, but the weather is foul as I write this, raining and there a high wind, but that wouldn't put off our Alfie.

Went to an archaeology exhibition in the Church of The Cornerstone. I've been inside the building, but not inside the actual church and was surprised by how small it was. It seemed an odd place to hold such an exhibition. It would have been better in the Middleton Hall, which is part of the main Milton Keynes shopping centre. Discovered that a Roman villa has been unearthed in a village called Piddington in Northamptonshire. It's just off the Bedford/Northampton road and not a long journey from here. There is a museum attached to it and I may visit in the near future. It's surprising what you discover when you visit such an exhibition and what other archaeology is going on in this area. I think I've driven along that road many times but knew nothing of this discovery, which was made around 40 years ago. Even so, nothing in the local papers to even mention it.